Proposal to form the London International Development Centre Migration Leadership Team (LIDC-MLT)

More than 1 billion people are estimated to be migrants, living either inside or outside their country of birth. Migration challenges currently feature centrally in electoral politics in the UK, and indeed across Europe and North America. They underlie considerations about foreign policy, national and international security, and international humanitarian and development aid. Understanding the drivers, dynamics and impacts of migration in the contemporary world requires a broad-based and interdisciplinary approach which is cognizant of the increasingly complex and multi-scalar drivers and experiences of migration. Despite this, migration studies has suffered from a prolonged Balkanisation with academic and policy makers largely failing to step across disciplinary, theoretical, methodological and geographical divides to learn from one another (Hathaway 2007; Faist 2011, Perez 2017). There is also a lack of systematic understanding of the ways in which research can effectively be linked to, inform, and influence policy and practice to bring about positive results that could help facilitate safe and constructive decisions about migration, inform more positive experiences of movement, and lead to the creation of viable alternatives for those who would prefer not to move. Researchers and practitioners face challenges in developing research tools and policy instruments that reflect a field in which the central features (economic and political dynamics, migratory routes, costs of travel, policy and legal environments in transit and destination areas) are all constantly shifting. There is also a need to take stock of the tools for achieving impact that have been shown to be effective and to identify new ways of generating impact through closer collaboration and communication between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.
This project will use an inclusive, consultative approach to assessing the scope, achievements and challenges of the existing portfolio of ESRC and AHRC funded research to identify strategic opportunities and priorities for further research and to highlight best practice in the area of impact. Drawing on the extensive interdisciplinary expertise of scholars within the London International Development Centre, the Migration Leadership Team will engage in a series of workshops, one-on-one interviews, and panel discussions with researchers, policy-makers, practitioners, migrants associations and arts organisations to identify areas of research to prioritise, pathways to impact that have been, or are likely to be, promising, and platforms for communication and collaboration that are likely to help bridge research, policy, and public engagement.

We have identified a series of key themes that we will include in our enquiry:
1) How can migration studies and refugee studies more effectively benefit from the theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that each is making?
2) How can research and policy better respond to the continued movement of people into and across the European Union, and between Europe and the UK?
3) How can research be used to better understand political and economic crises in countries and regions of origin and how can this research inform policy and practice?
4) What does emerging evidence tell us about the effectiveness of migration management and development policy which increasingly focuses on regions of origin?
5) What improvements and methodological innovations can be made in the collection and compiling of data about migration trends and demographics to improve the quality of information that drives migration and development policy?
Our main output will be a recommended strategy for the ESRC and AHRC for supporting migration research, supplemented by a scoping study on existing research, an interactive decision support tool, 8 policy briefs and 2 journal articles on our methodological approach. We will use visual tools (e.g. comics) to enhance impact.

This project will engage the following non-academic beneficiaries:
- The leadership of the ESRC and AHRC through regular communication, inclusion in workshops with policy stakeholders and researchers, and delivery of the co-produced Strategy for Migration Research.
- UK Government policy makers from a range of departments (DFID, Home Office, Dept of Communities and Local Government) through provision of a Strategy that aligns with the programmatic priorities and provides research and evidence that will inform more effective policy and testimony to select committees. Provision of a Decision Support Tool will provide an interface for stakeholders to access Councils' portfolio of migration research (see below).
- Counterpart government policy makers and policy makers from the EU, UN, international NGOs, and philanthropic foundations based in Europe, North America, East Africa, and South Asia through inclusion in a collaborative process of strategy formulation in which their own priorities are reflected.
- Migrant and refugee organisations in the United Kingdom through inclusion of their priorities and concerns in the resulting strategy.
- Public engagement and awareness, through collaboration with centres of arts and culture, including museums, galleries and theatres in the UK as well as creative modes of communicating migration issues through the medium of comics.

Several of our dissemination activities are tailored for the above-mentioned users:
(i) 8 working papers produced after each networking event highlighting key areas for discussion with stakeholders, to be disseminated to all participants and made publicly available.
(ii) A Draft strategy document, to be used in the networking workshops to invite feedback, and a final Strategy Report outlining the key strategic recommendations and findings of the project, to be disseminated to policy makers, practitioners and refugee/migrant organisations.
(iii) A short information Factbook (available both electronically and in print) highlighting the Councils' main achievements with respect to migration and displacement research, and future focus for public dissemination to the research, policy, and practitioner communities.
(iv) A final project dissemination conference inviting key national and international policy actors to showcase project recommendations and strategy.
(vi) A project website that will showcase the Councils' strategy on migration-related research and be used to host quarterly webinars in which researchers will be joined by policy-makers, migrants/refugees, and others to discuss some of the most important themes relating to migration and displacement emanating from Council-funded research.
(vii) A Decision Support Tool will be developed to provide a means to search and navigate the Councils' portfolio of migration-related investments and feature stories and videos about projects. This will be shared with all stakeholders during our workshops for wide uptake, and Councils will be shown how to maintain it to keep it current.
(viii) A graphic 'comic' will be developed to communicate some of the main features of migration experiences to demonstrate how research findings can be communicated to the public.
(ix) Evidence statements will be given to RCUK, strategic advisory groups, select committees, and Parliamentary inquiries in matters related to migration research. We will look for opportunities to bring public and targeted policy attention to the best and most relevant findings and products of Council-funded research.
(x) We will develop a proposal for monitoring of impact beyond the lifetime of this project so that Councils can track the impact of the strategy on policy and practice, as well as influences on the research strategies of other research funders.